1. Introduction

GNU shogi is a program that plays shogi, the Japanese version of chess, against a human (or computer) opponent. This file describes how to use GNU shogi and also gives background information about the game of shogi.

This file describes GNU shogi version 1.3.2. It was written by me, Mike Vanier, the current maintainer of GNU shogi. My email address is mvanier@cs.caltech.edu.

GNU shogi is actually two programs:

`gnushogi'

is the text-based program which also contains the game-playing engine.

`xshogi'

is the X-windows graphical interface to gnushogi.

Since xshogi invokes gnushogi, most players will just type "xshogi" and start playing.

Disclaimer: I use the personal pronouns "him", "his" etc. to refer to a shogi player regardless of gender. That's easier than writing "his or her" all over the place. I don't mean to infer that women don't play shogi; in fact shogi is very popular in Japan among women as well as men.